Calgary Music Spotlight: Kris Demeanor

SPOTLIGHT on Kris Demeanor

Calgary born songwriter/spoken word/theatre artist Kris Demeanor delights in exposing the underbelly of western Canadian culture- gambling, drug use, murder, religion, the suburbs. His CDs, "The Guilt and the Shame- tales of the Canadian West", and "Go Away (with me)" examine these darker, stranger corners of his home province. "I Have Seen the Future", an animated short film based on Kris's spoken word piece about a father/son tennis game sabotaged by three cruel teens, screened in 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival, and went on to win numerous awards, including making the Toronto International Film Festivals list of the ten best shorts of 2007 and being among the final 36 for Best Short Film for the 2009 Academy Award.

In total, Kris has released six CDs, which get regular exposure on CBC, CKUA and college radio around the country, and are sold on line through indiepool distribution. Kris has toured numerous times in Australia and Europe, and along with his Crack Band have shared bills with such artists as David Byrne, Cake and Elvis Costello, Ray Davies and Black Francis, selling thousands of his six CD releases in the process.

Kris has acted and created music for original theatre creations for Calgary's Sage Theatre, as a member of Theatre Junction's 2007 Resident Company of Artists, and most recently "Buzz Job- The True Story of Cal Cavendish", co-created with David van Belle, a musical theatre show that premiered in February 2009 in Calgary, and was remounted this summer 2009 at the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod and will be again in January 2010 at Calgary's High Performance Rodeo. January 2011 saw Kris collaborate with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in a show involving songwriters and the CPO entitled 'Acres of Dreams'.

Other theatre work includes ‘Twisted’, a musical revue by Forte Theatre/Bitter Suite Society, for which Kris one a Betty Award for Best Musical Direction, and ‘Reverie’, which he co-created and performed in for Ghost River Theatre (May 2011)

Kris is active in the spoken word/slam poetry and literary worlds, having recently performed at the 2009 and 2011 Calgary/Banff Wordfest as well as at the Calgary Spoken Word Festival in 2007 and 2009. He won the Best New Magazine Writer Award in 2009 for his feature article in Unlimited Magazine 'Get a Real Job'. His story ‘I Am Sure We Will Be Happy’ appeared in Alberta Views Magazine in October 2010 and is being reprinted in the Canadian Reader’s Digest in winter 2011.